Moms Know Best
by karly05
Summary: Linda Flynn-Fletcher is awaiting the birth of her newest grandchild, the first baby for Ferb and Vanessa. It's nice to still be needed. A heaping helping of Family Sweetness.


**A/N – I know nothing about hospital Birthing Centers, having babies, being around people having babies… but I wanted to write this, so please forgive any glaring errors. You know which characters belong to Dan & Swampy.**

Moms Know Best

Linda Flynn-Fletcher was knitting. The soft, fine, lavender yarn was taking on the shape of a tiny cap as she worked. She had already knitted a whole hamper full of tiny caps and booties and blankets over the past few months, but at times like this it was best to keep busy. This was the fifth time she had waited out a birth in the role of Grammy, so she should have been an old hand at it by now, but each time was different. And this was the first time she had done it for Ferb and Vanessa.

It was mid-afternoon. The four eager grandparents were gathered in a cozy alcove of the Birthing Center waiting room, where they had been camped since about 5:30 that morning. Vanessa had been admitted to the hospital late last evening, but the expectant parents had waited until things were farther along to start calling their families. First babies took their time, and the visitors had been warned that they were in for a long wait, but Linda was just as glad to be at the hospital; it was better than sitting around the hotel. Things had been easier when Amanda and Fred and Ben and Tom were born, because everyone was in Danville, and Linda could run errands, look after the older children, cook, clean, or find a hundred other distractions to ease the wait. But Ferb and Vanessa were living in Maryland, where he had earned his architectural degrees and was working with a firm that did historical restorations throughout the nation's capital and the surrounding area. There was talk that he might be working on a project inside the White House within the next year or two.

Meanwhile, here they were: Linda knitting, Lawrence thumbing through an old travel magazine and making offhand remarks about what he was reading, Charlene uncharacteristically munching on a bag of Cheesy Tater Tasties from the vending machine as she moved from one chair to another, trying to get comfortable. Heinz was sitting as far away from Charlene as he could (or was she sitting far from him?) and had his phone out, both thumbs working away at the key pad. Linda was aware of the phone periodically chirping out a text alert as he received a new message, and she wondered with whom he was texting. Charlene said he didn't have a lot of friends. Heinz had not flown to Maryland with the rest of them, and they had not seen him in the three days they had been in town, yet somehow he had been first at the hospital this morning. When Charlene had asked how he had gotten there so quickly, he had made some comment about a "rocket skiff." Linda had known ever since that disastrous blind date all those years ago that the man was crazy. Funny how they had ended up in-laws.

Charlene was on her feet again and talking of going down to the cafeteria to get some pie, and asking if anyone else wanted anything, when Nurse Hallie came toward them, a warm smile on her face. They all snapped to attention as she approached. Heinz even stopped texting, and ignored the new message alert from his phone. Linda was still on edge despite the nurse's cheerful expression, but they were soon rewarded with the announcement: "It's a beautiful little girl. Mom and baby are doing fine."

There was a flurry of happy exclamations and hugs, and Charlene said, "Can we see them?"

"In a little bit," Hallie promised.

Heinz was already texting again in a frenzy and asked, "What's her name? The baby," he added, as if this needed clarification. The families had known to expect a girl, but Vanessa and Ferb had kept any choice of a name to themselves. Not even Phineas had been able to pry so much as a hint from his brother.

"The new parents will have to answer that," Hallie deflected this. "Right now – Linda," she reached out a hand. "Would you come with me, please?"

Surprised by the request, Linda looked around at the other grandparents and said, "Oh, I think Charlene should be first…"

This got Heinz's attention. "Wait a minute! If anyone's going to be first…"

"Oh, Heinz, don't start," Charlene sighed.

"No one is seeing the baby yet," Hallie spoke over them, soothing the troubled waters. "Linda…?" she appealed again with that outstretched hand.

Offering the others a puzzled shrug as an excuse, Linda followed the nurse away from the waiting area. Hallie looped an arm through hers and gave her an encouraging pat. With a gently lowered voice, she explained, "Someone _really_ needs you right now." They passed the nurses' station and went a little farther into the corridor, until they stopped outside a room marked 'Consultation C23.' Hallie rapped her knuckles twice on the door before she opened it and stood back to allow Linda to enter. The lights were dimmed, but she knew at once the lanky figure sprawled in the arm chair inside. The instant he saw her, he scrambled to his feet, staggering a bit in the process, and she hurried to catch him in her arms as he flung himself into her embrace. Behind her, the nurse retreated into the hall, closing the door to give them some privacy.

"Mum." That was all Ferb said, but his voice was thick and full of a stew of emotions, anguish, elation, exhaustion. He clung to her, all six-foot-one of him, and she could feel him shaking. If the nurse hadn't told them that everything was fine, Linda would have been terrified by his demeanor, and it was still with some anxiety that she wrapped her arms around her son and steered him to sit down with her on the couch.

"Honey, what's going on? Is Vanessa all right?"

"Vanessa's marvelous." Ferb choked out something between a laugh and a sob as he paraphrased Kipling: "She's a better man than I am, Gunga Din." Linda brushed back the straggling mess of green hair from his forehead and the floodgates opened up. "I don't know how you ever do it!" he blurted, voice thickening again. "Having a baby. Vanessa was so brave and calm – well, there was some shouting and I think I learned a few new words of Drusselsteinian – but she handled the whole thing brilliantly. I, on the other hand…" Another shudder went through him as he confessed, "I thought I was going to faint, or be sick. I was utterly useless. _She _had to tell _me_ to breathe."

"Oh, sweetie," Linda murmured, rubbing her little boy's back as if he was four years old again.

As always, Ferb began to calm down under this influence, and he muttered, "I hate hospitals."

"I know," she crooned soothingly, palm still circling between his shoulder blades. "But I'm sure she was glad just to have you there. Have you held the baby?" she asked, attempting to distract him to happier subjects.

Ferb nodded. "She's so tiny. Of course she is," he acknowledged the obviousness of this statement. "And I know I've held other babies before. But – it's different when it's _yours_."

"Yes," Linda agreed, warmed by her own tender memories. "Yes, it is."

"When I handed her to Vanessa…" Ferb looked at his mother with the first suggestions of a smile as he explained, "I got to hold her first. It's a wonder they let me, I was so shaky. I didn't cut the cord," the smile flickered out when he admitted this. "I couldn't face that. But I got to hand her to Vanessa and – Oh, Mum, the look on her face." The smile came back, stronger this time, and Ferb's eyes were misty as he tried to explain. "When Vanessa held the baby… she had the most amazing look. It was… angelic." He settled on this word.

Linda was misting up a bit as well as she nodded her understanding of this.

"She's going to be a wonderful mother. Maybe even as good as you," he teased, and Linda was glad to see him getting back to his usual self. "I only hope I'm a decent dad."

"Ferb, honey, you're going to be a great dad." Linda hugged him tight and kissed his cheek.

"Thanks, Mum." He let out a deep sigh, hugging her back.

There was another tap on the door and Nurse Hallie peeked in. "Everyone's passing the baby around," she announced cheerfully. "You'd better come along if you want a turn."

Ferb's face fell again as he said, "Oh, Mum, I'm sorry, I've kept you in here while…"

"Never mind, sweetie," she assured him. "Let's go see what they're up to."

The two of them followed the nurse back to the birthing suite. Charlene was holding the little pink-wrapped bundle while Lawrence waggled his fingers and made funny faces and Heinz snapped photos with his phone. "Look, darling," Lawrence piped up happily when he saw Linda come in, "she has Ferb's hair."

To her surprise, Heinz chimed in with a silly, sentimental voice, his attention fully fixed on the baby, "She's a sweet little green apple strudel! Yes, she is! Such a cutie!"

Vanessa, propped in the bed, had immediately reached a hand out for Ferb. He went to her, and Linda saw the tender concern with which she rubbed his arm and quietly said, "Are you all right?" Ferb nodded as she patted the edge of the bed and he sat down, then Vanessa combed her fingers through his hair and touched his cheek and he took her hand in his and kissed it. Linda was still near enough to hear Vanessa tell Ferb in a confidential tone, "Dad's been texting pictures."

"Oh, good," Ferb murmured in response, and Linda could only guess that he must have known with whom Heinz had been on the phone all day.

"Now that we're all here," Lawrence announced, pulling out his FlynnTech F-Phone 7.0, "I'm calling Candace and Phineas."

"Here, Linda," Charlene passed the baby to her, and Linda took the precious bundle while Lawrence poked at the touch screen of his device.

Heinz craned to see what he was doing and remarked, "Far out! I've gotta get me one of those!"

"It's a prototype of the newest model," Lawrence explained, proudly declaring, "I'm the guinea pig!"

"He means Beta Tester," Linda corrected with a fond chuckle.

"Now, if I'm doing this properly…" He shuffled some icons on the screen and in a matter of seconds, Phineas's voice came from the phone.

"Hi, Dad! How's everything going? Good news, I hope."

"Splendid news," Lawrence replied, as if his beaming smile hadn't already conveyed this. "Can you raise Candace?"

"Already on it," Phineas replied. "How's the new dad holding up?"

It was Linda who said, "You can see for yourself in a minute." While Lawrence and Phineas proceeded to get organized, Linda carried the baby back to her parents, and Vanessa eagerly reached out to reclaim her little girl.

There was more back-and-forth as Candace was brought into the conference and both families at home in Danville were gathered, then Lawrence gave one more swipe of his finger across the F-Phone and two clusters of holographic images bloomed from the screen and hovered in the air. One bouquet consisted of Phineas and Isabella and their boys: five-year-old Ben, who resembled an auburn-haired version of his mother, and two-year-old Tom, whose name should have been Phineas 2.0. The other bouquet contained Candace and Jeremy and their blended family, adolescent Amanda and the inseparable eight-year-old stepbrothers, Xavier and Fred.

With so many people in on the call, there was a good deal of crosstalk and confusion for the first minute or two. Most of the faces were turned toward the newest addition to the clan, nestled in her mother's arms, and there were a lot of coos and cries of, "Oh, how precious!" and "She's so cute!" Fred and Xavier were the ones to remark, "She's got green hair!" "Yeah, cool!" which prompted little Tom to put in, "Green hair cooooool!" Candace and Isabella sought out Vanessa and asked how things had gone and how she was feeling, and Phineas observed, "Bro, you look like a wreck!" "Yes, thank you," Ferb acknowledged this comment with a mix of amusement and annoyance. "Did you take video?" Phineas asked eagerly, and when Ferb hesitantly admitted, "No," Vanessa leapt to his defense: "I told him not to." "Awww," Phineas looked dismayed by this, but Isabella shot him a little scolding glance as she assured the new parents, "That's all right. Not everyone needs to record everything."

Through all the chatter, Amanda had been trying to get the attention of Grammy or Aunt Vanessa or _someone _and finally thrust her hand in the air before she raised her voice and demanded, "What's her _name_?"

"Yeah," Heinz spoke up in agreement, "when are you going to tell us her name?"

Jeremy took up the cause as well and joked, "I've got five dollars on Lindana."

"Oh, you," Linda laughed at this.

"All right, all right!" with a good-humored look, Vanessa quieted them. "It's not Lindana." She looked up at her husband. "You tell them. It sounds so pretty when you say it."

Ferb looked down at his wife and daughter, and Linda felt herself tearing up at the proud and loving smile on her son's face. "Her name is Felicia." It did sound especially pretty in his precise enunciation. "Felicia Winifred Fletcher. Winifred for Gran," he noted, looking at his father.

Lawrence acknowledged this with a gratified nod and a murmured, "Jolly good, old chap."

There was a general murmur of approval, and Charlene said, "Felicia's a lovely name. I don't know why you had to make such a secret of it. I thought you were going to name her Brunhilda or something."

"Hey," Heinz huffed, "I had a great-grandmother Brunhilda on my mother's side."

"I know," said Charlene, shooting him a deadly look.

"We wanted it to be a surprise," said Ferb. "Couldn't give away everything ahead of time."

Linda knew the truth, that the new mother had wanted to avoid getting into a morass of family debates and unwanted advice, and she caught the grateful look Vanessa gave Ferb for coming up with this explanation.

"Well, I think it suits her," Felicia's Grammy Linda declared her approval, circling the foot of the bed to put an arm around her son. "And I'm glad you didn't use Lindana."

Ferb reciprocated with an arm around his mother and a kiss on her cheek before he warned her: "Oh, we're saving Lindana for the next one."

THE END


End file.
